Headsets are often employed for a variety of purposes, such as to provide voice communications in a voice-directed or voice-assisted work environment. Such environments often use speech recognition technology to facilitate work, allowing workers to keep their hands and eyes free to perform tasks while maintaining communication with a voice-directed portable computer device or larger system. A headset for such applications typically includes a microphone positioned to pick up the voice of the wearer, and one or more speakers—or earphones—positioned near the wearer's ears so that the wearer may hear audio associated with the headset usage. Headsets may be coupled to a mobile or portable communication device—or terminal—that provides a link with other mobile devices or a centralized system, allowing the user to maintain communications while they move about freely.
Headsets often include a multi-conductor cable terminated by an audio plug that allows the headset to be easily connected to, and disconnected from, the terminal by inserting or removing the audio plug from a matching spring loaded audio socket. Standard audio plugs are typically comprised of a sectioned conductive cylinder, with each section electrically isolated from the other sections so that the plug provides multiple axially adjacent contacts. The end section is commonly referred to as a “tip”, while the section farthest from the tip is referred to as a “sleeve”. Additional sections located between the tip and sleeve are known as “ring” sections. An audio plug having three contacts is commonly referred to as a TRS (Tip Ring Sleeve) plug or jack. Standard audio plugs are also commonly available with two contacts (Tip Sleeve, or TS) and four contacts (Tip Ring Ring Sleeve, or TRRS), although larger numbers of rings are sometimes used. Standard diameters for TRS type plugs are 6.35 mm, 3.5 mm or 2.5 mm, and the connectors also typically have standard lengths and ring placements so that different headsets may be used interchangeably with multiple types of terminals.
As communications systems have evolved, headsets and the terminals to which they are coupled have become more complex, creating a need to transmit more signals between the headset and the terminal. For example, headsets used in work environments in voice-directed or voice-assisted applications are often subject to high ambient noise levels, such as those encountered in factories, warehouses or other worksites. High ambient noise levels may be picked up by the headset microphone, masking and distorting the speech of the headset wearer so that it becomes difficult for other listeners to understand or for speech recognition systems to process the audio signals from the microphone. One method of reducing the impact of ambient noise on speech signal quality is to include multiple microphones in the headset so that ambient noise may be separately detected and subtracted from desired voice audio by signal processing electronics and/or processors in the terminal. However, adding additional microphones to the headset creates a need to transport additional signals to the terminal, and may also require the addition of processing electronics to the headset. As more functionality is added, the associated electronic circuitry also creates a need for power in the headset.
One way to couple additional signals from—as well as provide power to—the headset is to simply add additional conductors and connector contacts. However, doing so requires changes in both headset and terminal hardware, creating compatibility issues so that new headsets and terminals cannot be used with older legacy equipment to provide even original levels of functionality. This hardware incompatibility may increase the total number of terminals and headsets which must be purchased, maintained and tracked in order to insure that each worker has a functioning terminal-headset pair. In addition, as the number of separate conductors increases, the size and cost of cables and connectors also undesirably increases.
Adding batteries and moving audio processing electronics from the terminal to the headset could also reduce the need for additional conductors in some applications, but would undesirably add cost, weight and complexity to the headset. Because headsets in work environments are typically assigned to an individual worker for hygiene purposes, while terminals are shared among workers, such as between shifts, a workplace communications system typically requires more headsets than terminals. Shifting cost and complexity from the terminal into the headset is therefore undesirable, since it may result in a significant increase in the total cost of purchasing and maintaining the communications system.
Therefore, there is a need for improved methods and systems for transmitting multiple signals between headsets and terminals using existing hardware interfaces, and that are compatible with existing headsets. Further, there is a need to couple power from the terminal to the headset over existing standard connector and cable interfaces in order to support increased functionality in newer headsets.